Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Honoring my eating disorder.

Because I want to hate my eating disorder. I want to want to punch it in its stupid face, turn around, and never look back.

But I don't hate it.

I say that I do, sometimes. But I don't.

It serves a purpose in my life.

It's a coping mechanism that got me through some tough times in my life, the most recently being the loss of my mom 3 years ago.

The eating disorder gave me a sense of control in a world full of chaos. (Yes, much like makeovers did for Cher in Clueless).

The ED put impossible to handle feelings on hold for a bit.

The ED still helps me deal with life's daily struggles.

Even though I don't hate it yet, I don't want it in my life anymore. I am in active recovery, and plan to stay there.

I am learning healthy coping skills, and am practicing using them every day. Eventually my healthy self will grow stronger than my eating disorder. For now, they are neck-in-neck.

And that's okay. That's where I am.

I honor my ED because I grieve for it sometimes. Sometimes I miss being "allowed" to give in whenever I wanted to, because I wasn't ready for recovery yet. So I grieve for the sick freedom that came with being in the ED full time.

I know logically that it wasn't a true freedom, and that recovery is the key to true freedom, but since when does the ED let me think logically all of the time? Since never...

Anyway, I'm grateful to my ED because I chose it instead of suicide many times over the last few years. I'm aware that ED can be a slow suicide, but at least it gave me time to rethink everything and to get the help that I desperately needed.

I'm glad that I'm in recovery now, and I want to put the ED behind me, but for now I'm honoring that it's a part of my story. I can't write a memoir without it being a prominent part yet, but I'm hopeful that one day it will just be a chapter, and maybe not even an extremely memorable one. Who knows what lies ahead for my healthy self's life? The possibilities are endless.

1 comment:

It's nice to know that you're coping up well with your eating disorder recovery, Leah. I'm glad that you found a positive side of it, and it made you a stronger person in the end. Just keep it up, and maintain that optimistic outlook about everything. I wish you good luck!